The realm of Cardolan came into existence in the year III 861, when the Lost Realm of Arnor was divided among the sons of its last King, Eärendur. Eärendur's direct heir Amlaith founded Arthedain, while one of his brothers established a realm to the south. This new realm of Cardolan encompassed Minhiriath, the land between the rivers Baranduin and Gwathló, as well as an eastward stretch running as far as Amon Sûl and the course of Mitheithel.
As a son of Eärendur of Arnor, the first ruler of Cardolan was a descendant of the House of Isildur and the old High Kings, though of a lesser line. We know almost nothing about the unnamed founder of Cardolan or his line, and indeed it is not even known whether the founding members of this line styled themselves 'King' or 'Prince'.1
Though Cardolan was divided from Arthedain, the Dúnedain of the two lands remained allied with one another. In about the year III 1300, the Witch-king founded the realm of Angmar to their east, and the two realms found it necessary to combine their forces against this new common foe. For a century the Princes of Cardolan and the Kings of Arthedain held a frontier along the Weather Hills and the river Mitheithel (which formed Cardolan's eastern border).
Disaster struck in III 1409, when a huge army emerged from Angmar and swept westward. King Arveleg I of Arthedain was lost, and with him the eastern defences. The Witch-king's armies crossed into Cardolan and ravaged the land, and the last of the Princes of Cardolan lost his life in the hopeless battle that followed. The last remnant of his people retreated into the Barrow-downs on their northwestern borders, and buried the Prince among the ancient graves there.2
After their defeat and the loss of their Prince, a remnant of the people of Cardolan nonetheless survived after the Witch-king was eventually driven back. These people took refuge along the northern borders of the kingdom, and over the years they evidently began to spread across Minhiriath once again, but Cardolan was not destined to recover. In the year III 1636, the Great Plague came out of the south and decimated these survivors. So the land of Cardolan came to its end, only a little more than two centuries after the fall of its last Prince.
Notes
1 |
We have no references to a 'King of Cardolan', but only to a 'Prince'. So, we might take it that Cardolan's rulers, descending as they did from a younger son of King Eärendur, used the title 'Prince of Cardolan' from the time their land was founded. On the other hand, Cardolan is explicitly described as a 'kingdom' rather than a 'principality', so there may indeed have been Kings of Cardolan, at least during its earlier history.
We do know that the line of the original founder of the land did not last, and that by the time that Argeleb I ruled in Arthedain, there were no descendants of Isildur remaining in Cardolan. If there ever were any kings in Cardolan, then, it was perhaps at this time, with the ending of the line of Isildur, that the original royal line gave way to a house of Princes.
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2 |
Historically, it was common practice among the Northern Dúnedain to bury their dead among the Barrow-downs, as the earliest barrows had been made long beforehand by their own ancestors. At the time that the last Prince was entombed there, there were not yet any wights among the Barrows. Those evil spirits would not come to the Barrow-downs for more than two centuries, and one of them occupied the tomb of the last Prince; this was the grave where Frodo Baggins and his companions found themselves imprisoned on their journey out of the Shire.
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